Page:A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War.djvu/62

38 halfway between Tonga and New Zealand lies Sunday Isle. It is a volcanic rock-mass 1600 feet in height, and about four miles in diameter. It is exceedingly fertile, but steam rises from all the crevices of the rocks, and the people have only to scrape a hole in the ground, and therein place their food that it may be baked in nature's own oven. At one time there were a good many settlers in this warm corner, but in an evil day a Peruvian slave-ship touched here, and landed 200 poor creatures, captured in all parts of the Pacific. Typhoid fever had broken out among them; so they were thrown ashore to die, which they did, and most of the settlers shared their fate. The others left the island on the first opportunity, leaving only one white man with a Samoan wife and a dusky brood. These lived on in peace and plenty for about ten years, when suddenly the little fresh-water lake began to boil furiously, and from its midst a fountain of fire shot high in the air. Happily this mighty rocket served as a signal of distress, for a passing vessel descried the fiery column and came to investigate, greatly to the relief of the Crusoe family, who were taken on board, and for ever abandoned their home.

Evidently this isle must lie on the same volcanic chain as the White Sulphur Isle, which is a sulphur volcano to the north of New Zealand, connected subterraneously with that great tract in the province of Auckland, where geysers, solfataras, and all manner of volcanic phenomena abound.

All these are reproduced on a smaller scale on the island of Tanna in the New Hebrides, within 30 miles of Fotuna. It is a circular island, about 40 miles in diameter. Near the harbour rises a volcanic mountain about 500 feet in height, densely wooded to the very summit, though seamed with fissures from which rise clouds of steam and sulphureous vapours. The whole island is exceedingly fertile—cocoa-palms, bread-fruit trees, bananas, sugar-cane, &c., grow luxuriantly, and the yams occasionally attain a weight of 50 lb.; one root being from 40 to 50 inches long—a very neat thing in potatoes. Yet the soil which produces this rank vegetation forms so thin a crust over the vast furnace below,